Everything and more. The plane descends past pyramids and the Eiffel Tower. The New York skyline and a pirate ship. An entire world, only smaller and stripped of context and, you might argue, meaning.

Now also the home of the Miss America Pageant, which is what brings us here. Us, and Miss Oregon 2008, Danijela Krstic, of whom you will read much more in the Oregonian on Saturday.

The pageant is held these days in the Planet Hollywood resort/casino, still partly under construction, but new and polished and meandery in that we-want-you-to-get-lost kind of way.

The big event is centered in the Grand Ballroom, which I haven't visited yet, but I did spend some time in the warren of function rooms/offices nearby, (that's the Diamond Room, the Sapphire Room (a & b) and on and on through the precious gems) and can now tell you that the Miss America Organization (MAO) staff are: kind, but tired; not generally from large cities; very excited about the pageant and what it represents; and bullish on the current Miss A, because she is so good at "selling the product."